Artist Matches Human Skin Tone to Pantone Colors

Nude beige. Creamy beige. Natural beige. The names of foundations are meaningless, in case you never noticed. Artist Angélica Dass created the Humanae Project, an attempt to catalog all possible human skin tones, to challenge the idea that we can be accurately described as black, white, red, yellow—or beige.

Dass started Humanae, which she calls a "pursuit for highlighting our true colors," in 2012. She began by photographing her family members (she takes volunteers now), then taking an 11x11 pixel sampling from their nose and matching it to a Pantone color, which is then used as the photo's backdrop. The 2,000-plus images are on her Tumblr, and the result is more colors than you ever possibly considered human skin tone could be—there's pale pink, rich peach, dark brown, almost white, and every shade in between. Before, we might have said someone was "white," but Dass has made us see that person more as "Pantone 99-6 C."

For now, the project serves as a discussion piece on ethnic identity, but we're hoping foundation companies are listening. We're already dreaming about the day when we can choose our makeup based on our personal Pantone number.